^{page 548 note *} See ProfessorMüller's, Max essay on “Comparative Mythology,” in the Oxford Essays for 1856, p. 47.Google Scholar

^{page 550 note *} Albert Réville, Essais de Critique Religieuse, p, 383.

^{page 551 note *} De Rerum Naturâ, ii. 991 ff.; 998 ff.; v. 793 ff.; 799 ff.; 821 ff.

^{page 552 note *} Hesiod Opp., 561, γῆ πάντων μήτηζ. Æschylus, Prom. 90 παμμῆτόζ τε γῆ; Sept. cont. Thebas, 16, γῇ τε μητζὶ, φιλτάτῃ τζοφῷ. Euripides, Hippol., 601, ὦ γαῖα μῆτεζ ἡλίου τ' ἀναπτυχαὶ. Compare also the name of the goddess Demeter, an old form of Ge meter. (See “Liddell and Scott's Lexicon,” s. v.) Diodorus, i. 12, says that the Egyptians, “conceiving the earth as a sort of receptable of things in course of production, had designated her as mother; and that the Greeks had, in like manner, called her Demeter, the form of the word being slightly changed through time; since she was in ancient times named Gê Mêtêr (Earth Mother), as Orpheus testifies when he says: ‘Earth (Gê) is the mother of all, Demeter, the wealth-bestowing.”’

^{page 552 note †} Ertham is Ritter's emendation, the common reading being Nerthun. (Compare Ritter's note on section 9 of the Germania.)

^{page 552 note ‡} In Rigveda, x. 54. 3, Indra is said to have created the father and the mother (Heaven and Earth) from his own body.

^{page 553 note *} The part here assigned to love or desire (Kāma), in the creation, corresponds, as the classical scholar will have noticed, to the position of Eros in the Greek mythology. Hesiod (Theog. 120) makes this deity coeval with Gaia and Tartarus, and prior to Ouranos. (See “Smith's Dict, of Greek and Roman Biogr. and Myth.” under the art. Eros, and the passages of Aristotle, Plato, and Aristophanes, there referred to.) In the Satapatha Brāhmana,and other similar works, the creative acts of Prajāpati are constantly said to have been preceded by desire. In the Atharva Veda, Kāma is distinctly personified as the god of desire in general, and as of love in particular; and his darts are there spoken of (iii. 25, 1 ff.) just as they might be by a Greek, or by a modern, poet: “I pierce thee in the heart with the terrible arrow of love (Kâma). May Love pierce thee in the heart, having bent his shaft winged with anxiety, pointed with desire,” &c.

^{page 555 note *} Oxford Essays for 1856, p. 41.

^{page 555 note †} Hesiod. Theog. 126,—

^{page 555 note ‡} Ibid. v. 176,—

^{page 556 note *} Roth, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, vi. 69 f.Google Scholar; Whitney, in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. iii. p. 327.Google Scholar

^{page 556 note †} A name identical with the Zend Ahura, as the letter s of Sanskrit words is always represented by h in Zend.

^{page 556 note ‡} Abhandlungen für die kunde des Morgenlandes. Mithra, ein Beitrag zur Mythengeschichte des Orients. Leipzig, 1857.Google Scholar

^{page 557 note *} Journal of the German Oriental Society, vi. 70 f.Google Scholar

^{page 557 note †} Compare Ovid. Met. ii. ff.: “Regia Solis erat sublimibus alta columnis,” &c.

^{page 558 note *} Compare Ecclesiastes i. 7.—“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.”

^{page 558 note †} Then follow two verses containing imprecations. After giving a German translation of this hymn in his “Dissertation on the Atharva Veda” (Tübingen, 1856), Professor Roth remarks:—“There is no hymn in the whole Vedic literature which expresses the Divine omniscience in such forcible terms as this; and yet this beautiful description has been degraded into an introduction to an imprecation. But in this case, as in many other passages of this Veda, it is natural to conjecture that existing fragments of older hymns have been used to deck out magical formulas. The first five, or even six, verses of this hymn might be regarded as a fragment of this sort.”

I have attempted to transfer this hymn into English verse as follows:—

“The mighty Lord on high our deeds, as if at hand, espies:

The gods know all men do, though men would fain their sins disguise.

Whoever stands, whoever moves, or steals from place to place,

Or hides him in his secret den,—the gods his movements trace.

Wherever two together plot, and deem they are alone,

King Varuna is there, a third, and all their schemes are known.

This earth is Varuna's, and his those vast and boundless skies;

These oceans are his loins, and yet in that small pool he lies.

Whoever far beyond the sky should think his way to wing,

Yet could not there escape the hand of Varuna the king.

His spies descending from on high glide all this world around,

And thousand-eyed their gaze they cast to earth's remotest bound.

Whate'er beyond the heaven and earth, whate'er exists between,

That too by Varuna the king is all distinctly seen.

The ceaseless winkings all he counts of every mortal's eyes:

He wields this universal frame, as gamester holds his dice.

Those knotted nooses which thou fling'st, O god, the bad to snare,—

All liars let them overtake, but all the truthful spare.”

With this hymn compare Psalm cxxxix. 1-10, passim; with verse 2, compare St Matthew xviii. 20; and with verse 5, St Matthew x. 30.

^{page 559 note *} In another place (vii. 88, 4, ff.) the same seer alludes to his previous friendship with Varuna, and to the favours formerly conferred on him by that deity, and inquires the reason of their cessation. “Varuna placed Vasishtha on his boat; by his power the wise and mighty god made him a rishi, to offer praise in an auspicious period of his life, that his days and dawns might be prolonged. 5. Where are those friendships of us two? ^* Let us seek the harmony which we enjoyed of old. I have gone, o self-existing Varuna, to thy vast and spacious house with a thousand gates. He who was thy friend, intimate, constant, and beloved, has, O Varuna, committed offences against thee. Let not us who are guilty reap the fruits of oursin. Do thou, O wise god, grant protection to him who praises thee.”

^{page 559 note *} Compare Psalms lxxxix. 49, and xxv. 6.

^{page 560 note *} “Jour. Germ. Orient. Society,” vi. 73Google Scholar; “Sanskrit and German Lexicon,” s.v. Indra.

^{page 560 note †} “Sanskrit Lexicon,” s.v.

^{page 560 note ‡} See Strabo, XV. 1, 69, p. 718; quoted by Lassen, Indische Alterthumsk. ii. 698; Λέγεται δὲ χαὶ ταῦτα παζὰ τῶν συγγζαφέων, ὔτι σέβονται μὲν τον ὄμβζιον Δία ὁι ινδὶ, χαὶ τον Τάγγην ποταμὸν, χαὶ τοὺς ἐγχωζίους δαίμονας.

^{page 562 note *} Compare Psalm civ. 3.

^{page 564 note *} This is a phrase of frequent occurrence in the Rigveda. Compare the very similar expressions in Psalms xviii. 19, xxxi. 8, and cxviii. 5.

^{page 565 note *} See Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. p. 339, f.

^{page 565 note †} Only Indra is associated with him in two passages (vi. 69. 5; and vii. 99. 6) as taking vast strides.

^{page 566 note *} See my Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. Preface iv. ff., and pp. 54–101.

^{page 567 note *} Iliad, iii. 277, xiv. 344 f.; Odyssey, viii, 270; and Æsch. Prom. 91. Compare Ovid. Met., iv. 171 f.; 195 ff.

^{page 567 note †} Compare Hesiod, Opp. et dies : πάντα ἰδὼν Διὸς ὀφθαλμὸς χαἱ πάντα νοησας χ Τ λ

^{page 569 note *} See Nirukta, vii. 28, and xii. 19; and my Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. p. 55 f.

^{page 571 note *} Roth says of them (Journal Germ. Orient. Society, iv. 225), “The two Asvins, though, like the ancient interpreters of the Veda, we are by no means at one about the conception of their character, hold yet, according to their signification, a perfectly distinct position in the entire body of the Vedic deities of light. They are the first bringers of light in the morning sky, who in their chariot rapidly precede the Dawn, and prepare the way for her.” Compare Professor Max Müller's “Lectures on the Science of Language,” 2d Series (which have just been published as this paper is passing through the press), pp. 489, ff.

^{page 571 note †} The passage alluded to is Rigveda, i. 180, 2. In another text, i. 123, 5, Ushas is said to be the sister of Bhaga and Varuna.

^{page 571 note ‡} See Haug's, “Aitareya Brâhmana,” vol. ii. p. 273Google Scholar. “The Asvins were winners of the race with a carriage drawn by donkeys; they obtained (the prize). Thence (on account of the excessive efforts to arrive at the goal) the donkey lost its (original) velocity, became devoid of milk, and the slowest among all animals used for drawing carriages,” &c. The race alluded to is one which the gods ran to settle a point in dispute between them. See p. 270 of the work just quoted.

^{page 572 note *} Journal of the American Oriental Society, iii. 299Google Scholar.

^{page 572 note †} See Dr Haugs's Aitareya Brâhmana, i. 59, ff.; and Windischmann's “Somacultus der Arier;” as well as my “Sanskrit Texts,” vol. ii. pp. 469, ff., where the most important parts of this dissertation are translated or abstracted. See also the extract there given from “Plutarch de Isid. et Osir.” 46, where the soma plant, which in Zend is called haoma, is mentioned under the name of ὄμωμι.

^{page 572 note ‡} Whitney, , Journal of the American Oriental Society, as above: “Sanskrit Texts,” vol. ii. p. 470.Google Scholar

^{page 572 note §} These effects are thus described in a verse (Rigveda, viii. 48, 3) which may be freely translated as follows:—

“We've quaffed the Soma bright, and are immortal grown:

“We've entered into light, and all the gods have known.

“What mortal now can harm, or foeman vex us more?

Through thee beyond alarm, immortal god, we soar.”

Compare Euripides, “Cyclops,” 578, ff.,—

I subjoin a free translation of the 119th Hymn of the Tenth Book, in which Indra himself is supposed to express his sensations when in a,state of exhilaration:—

“1. Yes, yes, I will be generous now; and grant the bard a horse and cow.

I've quaffed the soma draught.

“2. These draughts impel me with the force of tempests in their furious course.

I've quaffed the soma draught.

“3. They drive me like a car that speeds when whirled along by flying steeds.

I've quaffed, &c.

“4. Not fonder to her calf the cow than that fond hymn which seeks me now.

I've quaffed, &c.“

5. I turn it over while I muse, as carpenter the log he hews.

I've quaffed, &c.“

6. The tribes of men, the nations all, I count as something very small.

I've quaffed, &c.“

7. The sky and earth, though vast they be, don't equal even the half of me.

I've quaffed, &c.“

8. The heavens in greatness I surpass, and this broad earth, though huge her mass.

I've quaffed, &c.“

9. Come, let me as a plaything seize, and put her wheresoe'er I please.

I've quaffed, &c.“

10. Come, let me smite with vigorous blow, and send her flying to and fro.

I've quaffed, &c.“

11. My half is in the heavenly sphere; I've dragged the other half down here.

I've quaffed, &c.“

12. How great my glory and my power! Aloft into the skies I tower.

I've quaffed, &c.

“13. I'm ready now to mount in air, oblations for the gods to bear.

I've quaffed the soma draught.”

^{page 574 note *} Manu, Yama's twin brother, is, however, far more frequently mentioned in the Rigveda as the first man or the progenitor of the Indians. See my paper on Manu, in the 20th vol. of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 406, ff.

^{page 575 note *} The later Indian writings hold out to the widow who burns herself on her husband's funeral pile, the hope of rejoining him in heaven. See Colebrooke's, “Misc. Essays,” i. 116, f.Google Scholar

^{page 575 note †} In the Mahâbhârata (xii. 3657) it is declared that “thousands of beautiful nymphs (Apsarases) hasten to meet the hero who has been slain in battle, exclaiming, ‘Be my husband.”’ Again, at v. 3667, it is said : “Behold, these shining worlds, filled with daughters of the Gandharvas,and yielding all manner of delights, belong tothe brave.”

^{page 576 note *} See Benfey's, “Griechisches Wurzellexicon, i. 27, and ii. 334.Google Scholar

^{page 576 note †} In the Brahmavaivartta Purana she is said to have been changed into a river by an imprecation of the Gangâ. See Professor Aufrecht's, “Catalogue of the Bodleian Sanskrit MSS.” p. 23.Google Scholar

^{page 577 note *} In iii. 53, 4 ff. Indra is thus addressed :—“A wife, Indra, is one's home; she is a man's dwelling : therefore let thy horses be yoked, and carry thee thither. But whenever we pour forth a libation of soma, then may Agni hasten to call thee. Depart, Indra; come hither, brother Indra; in both quarters thou hast inducements. Whenever thy great chariot halts, thy steed is unharnessed. Depart, Indra, to thy home; thou hast drunk the soma; thou hast a handsome wife, and pleasure in thy house. Wherever thy great chariot halts, thy steed should be unharnessed.”

^{page 578 note *} Yama's brother, Manu (who, as I have mentioned above, p. 573, note, is most commonly represented in the Rigveda as the first man, or progenitor of the Aryan race), resembles in name the Greek Minos, and the Mannus of the early Germans. See my paper on this subject in the “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,” vol. xx. pp. 429 f.